THE PORTRAIT OF ROMAN REALISM

The portrait as an individual likeness, truly reproducing the features of its subject and, at the same time, exhibiting the style and technique of the artist, has been practised at various times in human history. It was a popular art form among the Romans, serving either to produce the true likeness of a person still living, or as an artist’s interpretation of the personality of someone the artist had never seen. Portraiture implied a value judgment on a person, which was necessarily reflected in the finished work. Compared with Greek antecedents, such as the fifth- century image of Pericles or the fourth—century representations of Socrates or Alexander, it is evident that Roman portraits tended to be more realistic in their physiology and psychology.

We have already seen how important a role busts and statues played in Roman political and social life. This is confirmed by textual evidence, by inscriptions, especially those on the bases of statues, and by the thousands of surviving examples housed in the museums of Rome and other parts of the former Empire. The greatest concentration of identifiable portraits is to be found in Rome, particularly in the Vatican and Capitoline museums. From museum catalogues, it is possible to follow the development of the phenomenon, from imperial portraits done in the metropolis, and provincial replicas of the same, to private likenesses reflecting changing tastes. It is generally accepted that images of the Roman emperors need to be interpreted in terms of their period. But st is equally important to take into account geographical factors, and the difference between portraits executed in the round and in relief. Thus, the relationship between realistic portraiture and the portraiture of commemorative or narrative reliefs is an original aspect of Roman art. In such cases, one needs to be aware of she model used by the sculptor and the portrait’s purpose in relation to imperial propaganda.

The Romans used portraits, as did the Greeks to some extent, for two main purposes: to glorify living individuals and to commemorate the dead. The most characteristic form of celebratory portrait was a statue, generally set up in a public place, the execution and installation of which had social, economic and political implications. A funerary portrait, on the other hand, was essentially private, normally of concern only to the family of the deceased. Yet there was a clear desire to have this portrait seen by as many people as possible. In the upper echelons of society, the two functions were often combined in the practice of public funerals, during which busts of the dead executed in lightweight materials, and normally kept in the home, were taken in public procession to the forum. Such ceremonies served to justify the monopoly of power enjoyed by certain families, in that they stressed the virtue of dead ancestors and the services that they had rendered to the community.

Funerary portraits were produced, and have survived, in large numbers. We shall return to this subject in a later chapter. Stelae sometimes carry a faithful likeness, sometimes an idealized portrait, of the deceased, but the purpose is documentary. Inscriptions give supplementary information as to the age, social background, occupation and activities of the person commemorated. Such potraits, originally confined to the upper classes in Rome, spread downwards through society around the mid-first century BC. Subsequently, and particularly in the provinces, there was little distinction between serious official portraiture and the simplifications of so-called plebeian art. A good example is the funcrary cippi (grave markers) at Taranto.

In the city of Rome, celebratory statues were set up in important locations, such as the Capitol, the forum and the Rostra. Although some locations were more important than others, the points stressed by historical sources are the themes of these statues, the circumstances which gave rise to them, and their sponsors. Having oneself depicted wearing a toga or breastplate, or riding on horseback, does not seem to have been the preserve of the emperor and his family. Nude statues were very rare. In Republican times, public statues were almost exclusively erected in honour of present or former magistrates. We can distinguish two main categories: those ordered by the Senate for important services rendered to the State, generally military in character and associated with a triumphal procession, and those erected by provincial towns, communities or associations close to Rome in gratitude for favours granted by their Roman patrons. According to Pliny, there were so many of this latter category that in 158 BC the Censors banned them from the forum, which was becoming cluttered with statuary. Under the Empire, most portraits were of the Emperor and his family, both in Rome and the provinces. Celebratory statues dedicated to other persons became increasingly rare. Among the triumphal statues portraying the imperial entourage, those incorporated into the magnificent complex of architecture, sculpture and inscriptions in the Forum of Augustus, and later in the Forum of Trajan, are particularly worthy of note. They powerfully express the connection between the fortunes of Rome and the role of the imperial family.

Roman portraiture can be studied from various points of view, though special attention is often paid to problems of identification and style. A painstaking description of each anatomical or psychological detail is accompanied by observations on the material used, dimensions, state of preservation, subsequent restorations and origin of the works concerned. An attempt is made to establish the date of the original and identify the person portrayed. A date is suggested on the basis of clues as to the origin of the work, and the way the hair or facial expression has been treated. But long—established collections of Roman portraits are full of post—Renaissance copies or fakes, produced mainly in Italy. The Louvre collections, made up of works formerly belonging to royalty as well as the Borghese and Campana families, contain many examples. Prior to the purchase of an eleventh exemplar in 1958, of the ten portraits of Caracalla owned by the museum, six were only dubiously authentic, having been restored and reworked. To grasp the full artistic and iconographical value of a portrait, it is often necessary to appraise a piece as it would have been before restoration. There may be lingering doubts as to the authenticity of even recognized works. For example, a high-quality basalt portrait purchased from a dealer in 1956 by the Metropolitan Museum of New York was for many years considered to be a late Hellenistic work dating from the first century BC. It was then compared with a Vatican bust generally regarded as a key to the iconography of Philip the Arabian, and thought to be a portrait of that emperor dating from between 244 and 249 AD. From here it was only a short step to regarding the New York portrait as a work of antiquity and the Vatican bust as an eighteenth—century copy. Yet the latter was first recorded in 1778, and the New York portrait had not appeared on the scene until 1916. Today, laboratory analyses are a reliable guide to the authenticity of a piece. But in the absence of sources and precise indications as to origin, portraits are all too often authenticated and attributed merely on the say-so of connoisseurs of Roman sculpture.

Derived from the practices of specialists in Greek sculpture, the study of Roman portraiture often takes the form of a search for originals, working back from what arc considered to be copies. A second approach is to define the style of a period on the basis of a few works, or even just one. Clearly, this is unsatisfactory. To situate a work in its historical context, it is necessary to take into account a whole range of technical criteria, especially since most of the sculptors, not to mention the subjects, are anonymous. Hence the burgeoning literature dealing with iconographical detail: locks of hair, beards, nostrils, etc. Differing workshop traditions and characteristic tricks of the trade are often the basis on which portraits arc identified as being of this or that subject , whereas attention to the artistic conception in the true sense of the term would suggest that they represent o e and the same person. This means that when insufficient ought is given to the way workshops functioned, and particularly when precise numismatic evidence is lacking, the problem of identification is often tackled in the wrong way. If there were differences between workshops in the capital, must this not also have been, the ease in provincial centres? One of the major defects of certain lines of approach is to consider all newly discovered works solely in relation to the works of a given time, forgetting that workshop practices may have persisted beyond any limited period.

Portraiture was subject to very varied influences. Consider for instance the Egyptian realism of Central- Italic art. Italo-Etruscan influence may well lie behind the Roman patrician custom of keeping wax images of ancestors in the home. The adoption of longer-lasting materials was then a normal stage in the development of portraiture. The oldest Roman portrait that can be identified with any certainty is that featuring on the gold coins of Titus Quinctius Flaminius. The work of a Greek artist, it was struck in commemoration of a victory in 597 BC. From gemstones, it is evident that Hellenistic portraitists were working for Roman patrons during the second century BC, but the first monumental portraits of proven authenticity date from a hundred years later. Although coins hearing the posthumous portrait of Sulla probably echo lost monuments from this period, Pompey is the first historical figure honoured with freestanding statues of which we have definite evidence. These date from the middle of the century. Republican portraiture is characterized by a purely naturalistic representation of the face. The psychology and emotions of the model are not captured in any great depth. The arid naturalism that gained ground in the early part of the first century BC, and is evident in most portraits of famous people of the time, has sometimes been interpreted as an expression of the conservatism of patrician circles or as illustrating the mentality of a nouveau tithe middle class. It is easy to forget that, quite apart from the wishes of the patron, the general atmosphere in which artists lived and woked has to be taken into account. Portraits of Pompey, Caesar and Cicero from around the middle of the first century BC exhibit the fascination with Hellenism then dominant in Rome, but signs of a desire to exteriorize feeling and the inner life were also beginning to appear. This tendency developed during the second Triumvirate, with increasing exploration of emotional and psychological factors. Attempts were made to capture a specific aspect of the subject’s experience. In portraits of Octavian and Anthony, inner tension, changing emotions and bridled passion are reflected in the movement of the facial muscles. If it is genuinely antique, the fine head of Egyptian origin belonging to the Cleveland Museum of Art — sometimes said to be of Mark Anthony but probably a portrait of C. Cornelius Gallus — raises a problem regarding the possible influence of certain works produced in Egypt on sculptors working in Italy. In iconography, this influence ii best seen in the spread of portraits of Alexander the Great. The best synthesis between the prevailing superficiality and this desire for greater expression was manifested in the portraits of Julius Caesar, movingly described by Suetonius. Combining physical features and aspects of personality, his description in its turn raises the question of the relationship between a literary portrait and its counterpart in stone.

In Roman times, the difference in decoration between a modest dwelling in a secondary town such as Pompeii and Hadrian’s sumptuous villa at Tivoli was as great as that between a council flat and Buckingham Palace in out own. In both cases, sculpture was an important clement but, whereas humble folk made do with mass-produced reproductions of famous works or souvenirs brought back from their travels, the rich, in laying out their residences and gardens, bought reproductions of statues by the great masters of the past or commissioned works from contemporary artists. From discoveries made at Pompeii, it is evident that terracotta statuettes, for votive or commemorative purposes, were a common feature, and that houses s4crc more or less richly decorated with mural paintings. At the other end of the scale, palaces and the bigger villae were richly adorned with sculpture and, in particular, statuary. For instance, the famous statue of Augustus wearing a breastplate, the so-called Augustus of Prima Pqrta, now housed in the Vatican Museum, came from the suburban villa of Livia ad gallinas albas on the Via Flaminia. Why the wealthy made the choices they did is still something of a mystery. For example, a former villa urbana in the gardens of San Lorenzo in Panisperna, in Rome, housed a monumental statue of the Greek hero Pandion, dating from the first century BC, the base of which was discovered in 1888: we have no idea what Pandion once meant to the owner of this house. More common are statues of Ariadne, the Maenads or the Muses, which may have been intended to represent female members of the family

Private houses in Roman Italy were traditionally organized in insulae (blocks), with rooms arranged around a central rectangular courtyard (atrium), open to the sky. The homes of the wealthy incorporated a peristyle (courtyard surrounded by a colonnade) of Hellenistic inspiration. This type of layout was more popular in the

provinces, in particular for out-of-town villae. Buildings of this kind, which might be the centre of a farm or the country residence of rich city—dwellers, were often quite extensive. Aristocratic residences of this type have been discovered throughout the wider Roman world, in Britain (Fishbourne, Chedworth), Germany (Nennig), south-west Gaul (Montmaurin, Seviac), Spain (Pedros dc la Vega), and North Africa — where the magnificent mosaics of Tabarka show an arcaded gallery flanked by towers — as well as Italy (Settefinestre, Piazza Armerina). Monumental symmetry and an axial arrangement arc characteristic of many of these building complexes. As at Piazza Armerina, they tend to be subtle combinations of curved and rectilinear structures, laid out in accordance with the contours of the site. All are luxurious in the extreme. In most cases, the richness of their architectural decoration has been underestimated. But fragments of marble from different sources, rich columns, entablatures and cornices, bases and capitals prove that sculptors were every bit as active as the mosaicists. The man who commissioned the monumental complex at Piazza Armerina, in Sicily, during the early decades of the fourth century AD, did not stint on splendid Corinthian columns of die so-called Asiatic type, used mainly for the peristyle, nor on rich materials of different origins, many of which had already been used elsewhere and were chosen for their artistic qualities and power to confer prestige.

The interiors of the great imperial palaces were a particularly fruitful field for experiments in architectural decoration. The interplay of curves, vaults, cupolas, arches and walls, and the contrast between solids and voids, were a feature of Nero’s first palace in Rome, the Domus Transitoria (destroyed in the fire of 66 AD), and of the Domus Aurea. The latter, known from the descriptions of Suetonius and Tacitus, was a particularly opulent type of villa urbana, with buildings and gardens of monumental proportions. The vestibule was dominated by a colossal statue of Nero as Sun god, and the gardens, where various species of animal roamed free, were dotted with statues. The famous mural paintings of mom 8, which, like other aspects of this half-ruined residence, were a prime source of inspiration to Renaissance artists, demonstrated the importance of painted architectural decoration, featuring sonic pilasters, their capitals enhanced with stucco work, and painted monumental statues at ground level. Roman mural painting of the 4th style was often akin to stage scenery, the architectural structures and pediments richly decorated with carvings and statues, as in the panel from Herculaneum in the Naples Museum.

and a large garden in the form of a stadium to the southeast, inaugurated in 92 AD. There were two entrances to this garden, one giving access to the private residence, the other, with porticos, to the official apartments. Baroque decoration and tricks of perspective, which were to find their fullest expression in Hadrian’s villa, were a feature of the official apartments, arranged around a large peristyle. To the north of this courtyard was the aula regia, a large reception room with niches flanked by tall columns and apses, the basilica, and the lararium (shrine to ancestors), housing images of the imperial family, and, to the south, a colossal triclinium (dining room). As with all these grand imperial residences, it requires an effort of imagination to reconstruct the colours of the walls, perspective effects, striated columns of Phrygian marble and multitude of aediculae containing statues. The walls of the triclinium opened onto the landscaped gardens beyond. On the side opposite the peristyle, the wall ended in a screen of six Egyptian granite columns, flanked by fountains faced with marble. The whole effect was enhanced by the curved colonnades of the other courtyards. All this splendour anticipated by some years the sumptuous layout of Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli, described in a later chapter. An essential aspect of the villa’s architecture was the monumental decor of architraves and capitals, and the wealth of statues that is so indicative of Hadrian’s taste for Hellenistic culture. Even when architectural sculpture has disappeared from the residences excavated by archaeologists, mural paintings still bear witness to the Romans’ enthusiasm for sculpted decoration, which they may not always have been able to afford. At Pompeii, there are many examples of the “architectural” 2nd style, with walls of imitation marble, projecting structures supported on columns and a great deal of sculpture. Good examples of this illusionist painting are the House of the Griffons under the Dooms Flavia in Rome, which dates from the late second century BC, the celebrated Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii itself, and the Boscoreale cubiculum, conserved in New York. This type of decoration is often enriched with stucco reliefs, as in the Villa Farnesina on the banks of the Tiber. The ceiling of cubiculum D, now kept in the Museo delle Terme, is decorated with panels of polychrome stucco, featuring victories, cupids, griffons, idyllic landscapes and scenes of the cult of Dionysos, arranged in cycles. This kind of stucco relief faint in outline but executed with great delicacy, running in a continuous band between walls and ceiling, first appeared in late Republican times but was most popular under Augustus when this example was created.

As with funerary reliefs, domestic mural decorations depicting mythological themes or subjects from daily life reflect the overwhelming presence of sculpture in the public and the private 1’s of the Roman people. The sculptures that are represented in mural painting are often modelled on real statues.

Greek and Etruscan antecedents need to be taken into account if we are to understand the symbolism of Roman art. In contrast with Greek tradition, Etrusco—Italic art began to pay attention to gestures of worship, the relationship between members of a group, the isolation of certain figures and the convergence of attitude and eye. The art of Republican Rome responded to the need to use symbolism in the service of the increasingly vast and universal State. The coinage was used as a means of propaganda, while statues tended to define honorific types by depleting individuals dressed in togas, wearing breast- plates, in the guise of hero or mounted on horseback. This latter formula presented a man as superior to his fellows, the heroic bringer of peace. The prince, commonly depicted holding the general’s baton an his right hind as a symbol of his rule, might also be represented making a formal speech (adlocutio) or showing mercy to kneeling barbarians. Roman art tended to set apart the emperor and his entourage and define personalities in terms of hierarchy. Imperial propaganda was used to establish the personal superiority of the prince: on some coins, the prostrate figure of Roma restituta was shown being raised up by the emperor, or the Senate was depicted crowning him in a ceremony known as Senatus pietati Augusti. Under the Flavians, the event legitimizing the new dynasty was the victory over the Jews, celebrated in the dextrarum iunctio (joining of right hands). In Domitian’s victory commemorations, the emperor is shown at a distance from his entourage, dominating a symbolic or allegorical figure representing the defeated enemy. In the time of Trajan, promsnenee was given to the emperor’s

participation in public affairs and military campaigns, and greater efforts were made to involve the spectator. During the second century, the attitude of the sovereign begins to prefigure the absolutist stance of the later Empire. The emperor stretches forth his right hand in a god—like gesture of justice and greeting. The victorious return and triumph are the standard ways of representing a victory. The authority of the commander is expressed in hunting and battle scenes. The idea of majesty is conveyed in free-standing sculpture by images of the monarch seated on a throne and in relief sculpture by a central position. His entourage on either side turns towards him. In the final centuries, the emperor on his throne is presented in a hieratic, frontal pose.

Among the Romans, sculpture also played a vital role in expressing religious attitudes and beliefs. Roman religion was characterized by its syncretism, tending to bring gods and beliefs of various origins into a unified form of worship. At the same time, popular rites in the agrarian tradition were kept separate from official ceremonies. Originally, the Romans had seen the whole world as sacred, and all intellectual activities were inspired by religion. Mixing native traditions with borrowings from neighbouring peoples, they began to deify natural forces and the elements, as apprehended in the world around them and in family life. Some of these forces (numina) became gods in their own right, for instance Saturn, Janus, Jupiter, Mars, Neptune and Vulcan. Private and public pietas was expressed in regular acts of worship, festivals and rites. The gods were grouped together, sometimes into threes, like the “triad” of Etruscan origin that originally presided over the Capitoline. Later arrivals were the gods of Magna Graecia and Sicily, bringing with them Greek myths and beliefs, and certain forms of oriental worship. This open, friendly reception of gods of foreign origin, controlled by the priests, was one of the features of Roman religion. Augustus played a decisive role in making religion an integral part of Roman life. Though excluded from politics, the common people nevertheless participated in a religion with definite political overtones. Subsequently, religious feeling waned, and divine images subsisted mainly in a temple environment, though still with the support of the civic authorities.

Sacrificing to the gods was an essential aspect of Roman religious life, both public and private, and scenes of this kind are among the oldest and most lasting in Roman art. A relief on an altar at Civita Castellana, dating from the first century BC, is the first representation of a Roman officer, or more generally a historical figure, performing a sacrifice. This was a subject that became very popular in the Severan period.

Mythology was the source of many of the images of Roman art. Of prime importance were the Greek myths, suitably adapted and amended. The characters most frequently depicted in sculpture, taken in alphabetical order, were: Achilles, Actaeon, Adonis, Ajax, Apollo, Ariadne, Artemis, Athena, Attis, Bellerophon, Endymion, Europa, Ganymede, the Gigantomachy, Helen, Herakles, Hippolytus, Hylas, Icarus, Iphigenria, Jason, Leda, Medea, Menelaus, Narcissus, Oedipus, Orpheus, Paris, Perseus, Persephone, Phaethon, Telephus, Tereus, Theseus and Ulysses. Hcsakles (Hercules) was the most popular, followed by Achilles, Ganymede, Leda, Iphigeneia, Apollo, Medea, Orpheus and Perseus. Most of the reliefs on which they feature come from funerary monuments, which explains why myths associated with allegories of death are those most frequently represented. The immense popularity of Hercules, victor over evil and death, derives from the fact that he was regarded as the saviour par excellence.

In the provinces, imperial, religious and mythological iconography assumed various forms, depending on underlying pre—Roman traditions. In Gaul, for instance, cross— legged figures, horses, “severed” heads of the kind found at Entremont and two—headed figures are all pre— Conquest. During the Roman period, alongside such great monuments as the Mausoleum of the Julii and the triumphal arches of Glanum, Orange and Carpentras, there were numerous reliefs, altars, stelae and statues which freely expressed a Gaulish mythology combining native traditions and the newly-adopted gods of the Graeco—Roman pantheon. Here, pride of place went to Mercury, the god of commerce, technology and the arts. The intensity of his cult is even recorded in the sixth book of Caesar’s Dc Belle Gallico. Also of importance were Minerva, the sky—god Taranis—Jupiter, Teutates—Mars, Apollo the healer, the antler-bearing Cernunnos, the horse-goddess Epona, Sucellus with his -mallet and large numbers of matrons or mother-goddesses. Gaulish sculptures of these deities are usually easy to identify by their characteristic style.

It is of course impossible to list all the subjects of Roman reliefs: the many depictions of Dionysiac revels, hunting and battle scenes, the motifs on sarcophagi, to which we shall return later; mythological subjects, the worship of Mithras and other oriental deities, the Egyptian cult of Isis, and friezes of religious ceremonies; animals such as the griffon, images of poets and philosophers such as Plautus, Terence or Aristotle, maritime subjects associated with Neptune, or illustrations of public entertainments. In the last category are many detailed representations of chariot races (such as the base of the obelisk in Constantinople). Depictions of the circus show the carceres (paddock), the metae (finishing posts) and the obelisk erected on the spina (low wall running down the middle), statues of the gods set up on columns, the dolphins and eggs for counting the laps and, of course, the progress of the race itself The quadrigae of the four factions are generally depicted in full flight, and the winning chariot, as in the ancient funerary relief in the Lateran, is

driven by a young charioteer. A sparsor can be seen sprinkling sand or water an front of the horses. A funerary relief of this kind suggests that the tomb was intended for a dominus factionis, the head of one of the racing stables. Circus scenes were extremely popular. The Romans were passionate about chariot racing and rivalry between the four factions was the subject of great popular enthusiasm. The symbolism of seasons and colours is an important aspect of such scenes, while the victory of a charioteer depicted on a tomb represents man’s victory over death. Chariot races were also one of the most popular subjects for Roman interior decoration in Late Antiquity, as witnessed by the mosaics of the rural villa at Piazza Armerina or the well-to-do town houses of Barcelona or Lyons.

The Romans admired Greek art, but used it in different ways. Contemporary scholarship has made much of the influence of the Greek legacy on Roman art, and this is a significant factor not only in sculpture but in painting and temple architecture. Artists from the Hellenistic world came to work in Rome, while Greek works of art were imported in vast numbers as the spoils of war. Roman patricians were very keen to acquire works of this kind. In the first centuries of Roman civilization, Hellenistic art alone was regarded as worthy of esteem and the superiority of the Greeks was overestimated. The Roman craftsman was thought to have difficulty in imitating Greek work and to be quite incapable of creating anything of equal merit. Many sources bear witness to debates of this kind among the intellectual elite, and to the high prices fetched by works of art imported as war booty. In 146 AD, for example, after the fall of Corinth, many statues were brought to Rome and some were even distributed to other Italian cities. The architect Hermodorus of Salamis and several famous sculptors arrived at about the same time.

Despite the influx of original Greek works and the presence of Greek artists in the two centuries before Christ, Roman art was nevertheless acquiring an identity of its own. This was already apparent in architecture. It is a fact that no Greek building was ever really dismantled and transported to Rome. And despite close observation of Greek models, evident in Vitruvius, Roman architectural categories, being essentially functional, were not the same.

In the field of sculpture, and especially statuary, the study of Greek works, during the Imperial period so particular, resulted in Roman sculptors adopting a threefold approach: interpretatio, imitatio, aemulatio. Indeed, in attempting to tease out the originality of Roman art, we must not forget that under the cuirass of the Augustus of Prima Porta lurks the Doryphoros (Spear Bearer) of Polyclitus (of which there are other replicas, in the best sense of the word, for instance at the Museo Nazionale in Naples) or that the Belvedere Apollo was inspired by Apollo the Archer from Asia Minor.

There are few Roman works modelled on Archaic masterpieces. The Webb head in the Brstish Museum, carved in the Flavian period, is a direct imitation pf the statue of the Athenean Tyrannicide Harmodios by Antenor, thus contradicting the view that no copies were made of statues dating from before the late sixth century BC. There are also a few korai and two torsos of ephebes in the Berlin and Boston Museums. But, on the whole, particularly between the first and third centuries AD, the Romans took as their models sculptures of the’ Classical period. Among these, it is possible to distinguish a number of categories: replicas, intended to be exact copies of famous Classical originals; works inspired by a single Classical model but modified to reflect contemporary taste; sculptures combining elements from a number of Classical models; and works which reproduce a given Classical style without reference to any specific model. Over and above Greek influences, we need to look for the truly Roman innovations in form that reflected changing tastes.

Where relief sculpture is concerned, Greek influence found a different mode of expression. Since the last century, it has been common to compare the Parthenon frieze depicting the Panathenaic procession with the friezes on the north and south walls of the Ara Pacis of Augustus. It

is true that the two processions have much in common, being arranged along the north and south walls of a religious building, each representing a contemporary religious procession. Both are carved in low relief against a neutral background that conveys a sense of solemnity. However, there are also fundamental differences between these two well-attested monuments, reflecting the widely divergent outlooks of the sculptors concerned, who worked in the fifth and first centuries BC respectively. Similarly, the Flavian fragments of the frieze of the theatre of Balbus in Rome appear to be a latter-thy version of the monumental frieze of the great altar of Zeus at Pergamon. A relief found in Modena leads us to reconsider Roman copies of the Niobid reliefs of the throne of Zeus at Olympus. The artists in these cases were not seeking so much to reproduce a model, however famous, as to reinterpret and create new compositions based on a stock of types. This is particularly evident if we consider sarcophagi, where Greek myths are recast to suit the circumstances, social background and requirements of the sponsor: it is not possible to give the same explanation for the choice of similar subjects when they occur in different settings. We shall return to this question when considering mythology and sarcophagi.

The copying and interpreting of models is a constant factor in art, and the influence of famous monuments can clarify the relationship between one work and another. The Arch of Trajan at Benevento is a painstaking copy of that of Titus, erected twenty or so years earlier in Rome, even in the details of ornamentation. The Maison Carree

in Nimes derives certain of its features from the slightly older temple of Apollo situated behind the Theatre of Marcellus in Rome. It thus illustrates the influence of metropolitan monuments on life in the provinces. Then there are mixtures which depend on the local history of a work. For instance, the famous military statue of M. Holconius Rufus at the Museo Nazionale in Naples, carved between 2 or 1 BC and 14 AD, must have suffered serious damage in an earthquake in 62 AD. In fact, so badly damaged was the head that it was totally replaced. Today, the statue of Holconius Rufus is a mixture, the face a copy made in the time of Nero or the early Flavians. We need to make distinctions when considering the issue of copies; in many cases, the imitation is more a question of the spirit of the work than of the actual details. This is made abundantly clear if we compare the head of the young man riding in a chariot in the Palazzo dei Conservatori with hat of the Apollo prominently displayed at the National museum in Athens

Roman sculpture gradually gained a foothold in towns and cities in the form of public statues, some of them freestanding and others incorporated into buildings. Some were reliefs covering large areas of important monuments; others featured decorative plant or geometric motifs. Most architectural innovation took place in towns and cities, where urban planning led to the construction of new buildings, forums and grand colonnades. Roman architecture, which adopted the Done, Ionic and Corinthian orders of Greek architecture, frequently displayed a new aesthetic direction. Public buildings and monuments combined austere grandeur with technological innovation, thanks to the invention of rubblework; many of them were built by politicians and military commanders.

The desire for grandeur on the part of senior dignitaries was most clearly reflected in the architecture of the Forum in Rome. Caesar decided to expand the Roman Forum at the foot of the Capitoline by building a new one alongside it; work on this began in 51 BC. A wide square surrounded by porticos highlighted the Temple of Venus Genetrix, which was home to the votive statue by the neo-Attic sculptor Arcesilaus. The Forum of Augustus was inaugurated in 2 BC; this was a new type of forum which served as a commemorative monument. Sculpture played an essential part in it. Many fragments of statues have survived. In particular, the forum contained statues of princes and kings. Aeneas, together with his father and son, probably occupied the northern hemicycle, and Romulus the southern one. These hemicycles, decorated with polychrome marble, surrounded the temple built to commemorate Octavian’s victory at Philippi in 42 BC. The temple was dedicated to Mars Ultor (Mars the Avenger), and was richly decorated with statues of Mars, Venus, Romulus, Fortuna and Rome between the Palatine and the Tiber, as well as the famous votive group featuring Mars, Venus and the divine Julius Caesar. There was also a renowned quadriga of Augustus as Pater Patriae, though none of this has survived and it is hard to pinpoint its location. The theme of this iconography came in for renewed study as part of a famous German exhibition dedicated to the Emperor Augustus.

The two main buildings of the Italic forum were the temple and the basilica. The temple, with its high podium, was located axially, and the cella, as in Greek architecture, was situated behind the pronaos or porch at the end of the façade portico. The axial nature of the temple was also emphasized by its position at one end of the forum. The basslsea was a Roman innovation: a large rectangular meeting—hall with a roof borne on columns or pillars, sometimes on all four sides.

Triumphal monuments were the most obvious example of sculpture being used as propaganda to express the dominant ideology, either within the city or in some eases at its gates. Triumphal monuments were particularly ostentatious monuments. They had one or more spans, and were often built to commemorate military victories. The spans, as in the Arch of Trajan at Timgad or that of Septimius Severus in Rome, were flanked by columns, often arranged in pairs. The spaces between them were covered in reliefs depicting the event commemorated by the arch. The building of the Arch of Trajan at Benevento was approved by the Senate in 114 to mark the opening of the new Via Appia, but was completed under Hadrian. The city side depicted peaceful activities, while the side facing into the country showed military scenes and the Emperor’s actions in the provinces. The inside of the span

showed the institutio alimentaria (a state loan to landowners where the interest was reinvested in education), an act of Trajan’s considered worthy of commemoration. As with all arches, the reasons for its construction are stated in a long inscription at the top. The arch was originally crowned with free-standing statuary, often in bronze. Another example of urban propaganda was seen in the triumphal columns, whose sculpted decoration was essential to their meaning. Trajan’s Column in Rome, which is very similar in style to the reliefs on the arch at Benevento, depicts the Emperor’s conflict with the Dacians.

The theatrical architecture of buildings used for public entertainment was also highly characteristic of Roman art. The Colosseum epitomizes the architecture of the amphitheatre. Begun by Vespasian and completed by Domitian, this monument has become famous both for its external appearance and the fact that it has four storeys, featuring each of the three orders in the arcades and in the pilasters with demi-columns that frame them. The Done order appears on the ground floor, the Ionic above it, and the Corinthian on the third level. The windows on the fourth storey, which had no arcades, originally alternated with gilded bronze shields. In amphitheatres as in all other public buildings, statues, stucco reliefs and decorative sculpture of all kinds were omnipresent. The theatre, which created a truly monumental scene in front of the semicircular tiers, was the best example of this; the sculpted decor was part of the drama being played out on the

stage. This monumental decoration was also found in the architecture of public and private baths. These were one of the most important contributions of Roman architecture, which enlarged on the traditional functions of the Greek gymnasium. The public baths at Ephesus and Pergamon, for example, included a large rectangular hall ending with a palaestra, whose inside walls were decorated with columns and statues similar to those used on the façades of theatres and nymphaea. The great Roman baths of Caracalla and Diocletian were huge leisure centres, with libraries, meeting rooms, swimming pools, gardens and fountains, in addition to the various hot and cold rooms. The baths played an important part in Roman life. The only imperial baths in Rome whose sculptural decoration it is possible to reconstruct are those of Caracalla, where we can see how ideally suited the baroque style of Severinus was to the expression of monumental drama. There were many niches in the Baths of Caracalla, showing that it housed a large number of statues. These were mainly concentrated in the rooms around the palaestra and in the area of the large swimming pool, whose northern wall resembled a scaenae frons with two levels of columns and aedicules among which stood eighteen large statues. Study of the niches, bases and ground-level emplacements reveals that the ensemble included over a hundred free-standing sculptures. The giant head of Asclepius at the Museo delle Terme, the Farnese Hercules and many other mythological and imperial sculptures derive from this source.

The Roman love of pomp and show, set off by sculpture, is clearly evidenced by the residences and palaces of the wealthy, which we shall deal with more fully later. Analysis of the decor of imperial residences reveals the role played by sculpture: the tendency already evident in Nero’s Golden House was developed and came to full flower in Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli. There is often a striking contrast in buildings of this kind, as in the Roman baths, between the purely functional severity of the outside and the baroque profusion of the interior decoration.

Looking beyond his palace or residence, the Roman patrician also set great store by his last resting place, his mausoleum or tomb. Beginning in Republican times, impressive funerary monuments were erected on either side of the major consular routes, some built to a circular plan with a number of separate chambers and a vaulted roof. The Pantheon and the role played by statuary in its decoration immediately spring to mind, but equally deserving of attention are the many sarcophagi, stelae and altars we shall be reviewing in a later chapter. These monuments were set out in avenues at the gates of the town and, like the cemeteries of our own day, were veritable repositories of sculpture in all its forms. The sixty-three tombs at Pompeii’s Herculaneum gate are a case in point. It is clear that the purpose of these monuments was not so much to express preoccupations regarding the next life as to present the career, life and achievements of those with the means to pay for a sculpted tomb in this.

The reliefs from the funerary monument of the Haterii, conserved in the Vatican Museum, include realistic illustrations of the buildings erected in Rome under the Flavian emperors. Busts of gods, funeral scenes and busts of members of the family constitute an iconographic project reflecting the ambitions of the sponsor. They also bear witness to the place of sculpture in Roman architecture, as seen by a citizen who wanted it incorporated in his tomb. The image of Rome conveyed by the Haterii monument is that which appealed most to the men of the Renaissance: a capital city dominated by sculpture.

THE ROMAN ART

Roman art has often been considered less important than Greek art, and Neo-Classicism helped to disseminate the notion that Greek idealism was superior to Roman realism. For a long time, there was a refusal to consider Roman art in its own right rather than as a pale reflection of Greek art, which was regarded as intellectual, abstract and philosophical, where Roman art was seen as mundane, concrete and historical. These profound conceptual differences can be observed in representations of war, battle and victory over foreign peoples. In their depictions of such events, the Greeks used myths, in which the most civilized combatant, the positive element of the narrative, was destined to achieve victory; the images show struggles between gods and giants, centaurs and apiths and Greeks and Amazons. In Roman art, myth and religion give way to the historical reality depicted in the narratives traditionally displayed on triumphal columns. This contrast between almost abstract representation and reliefs sometimes regarded as almost cinematographic in their narrative of events clearly demonstrates the objective and symbolic difference between these two forms of artistic expression.

These difficulties in defining an aesthetic were compounded by the fact that during both the Republican and Imperial eras Roman art had to confront the dominance of Hellenism. The Greek form of artistic expression proved able to outlast official Roman art. This formal continuity was not due solely to the Roman taste for Greek art; it also reflected the strength of tradition, which can be clearly seen in the religious iconography and the correlations between Greek and Roman gods, despite the importance of the Italic world (Minerva, for example, derives from the Etruscan goddess Menvra rather than the Greek Athena).

This phenomenon persisted during the early centuries of the Christian era, as can be seen in the transition from the Greek Nike through the Roman Victory to the Christian angel, from Orpheus to the representation of David or Christ, and from the ancient philosophers to the Christian apostles, etc.

Another aspect of the pervasiveness of Hellenism in Roman art was the demand among the upper classes in Roman society for works of Greek art. Contact with Greek art led to the development of a passion for collecting that gradually permeated the Roman world, particularly following the conquests of Southern Italy, Greece and Asia Minor. Imported works of art enjoyed enormous prestige in Rome, but at the same time, paradoxically, certain groups in the upper strata of Roman society began to reject foreign works of art on the grounds that their arrival in Rome was one of the principal causes of the breakdown of traditional morality. Cicero bears witness to the existence of genuine connoisseurs of Greek art and, as can be seen at Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli and at many other sites, replicas of Greek sculptures and Roman interpretations of Greek models were given absolute pride of place. Yet Roman art existed in its own right, and original sculpture was produced in a wide range of different fields.

The taste for narrative relief, evocation of the artistic characteristics of earlier centuries, a sense of setting, the place of sculpture in architecture and the individualization of portraits are all aspects that help to define Roman art, despite the changes that occurred over the centuries. Trends in official art, whether patrician or imperial, stand in contrast to the evolution of popular or plebeian trends. It was only from the third century onwards that the second tendency began to show spectacular development in the field of sculpture, and that development continued until the Early Middle Ages. A distinction has to be made between public and private sculpture, between urban and rural sculpture and between exports of finished products and local production, and some attempt also has to be made to take account of the enormous geographical scope of Roman art.

In seeking to understand Roman art in the context of the society that consumed it, it has to be asked whether Roman art is that of the city of Rome and of the regions under the direct influence of the capital and its immediate surroundings, or whether the term is taken to refer generally to the art of the Ancient World during the Roman period. The merging of the arts of the capital with those indigenous to North Africa, the Orient, the Iberian Peninsula, Gaul and Germania gave rise to provincial forms of artistic expression that helped to give Roman art its originality and diversity. It was not until the centuries immediately following the founding of the city of Rome that the region of central Italy began to play a central role in defining Roman art. Subsequently, Roman art came to incorporate the full variety of styles denying from regions politically dependent on Rome.

The study of Roman sculpture dates back to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. During the latter period, in particular, artists discovered Rome and its ancient monuments, and collectors developed a passion for the art of the Classical period. During the sixteenth century, many ancient monuments in Rome were converted and restored to use, but the search for outstanding pieces very often took precedence over the conservation of surviving complexes. Thus Bramante, who methodically excavated the Forum, making careful note of everything that he discovered, had no compunction about destroying a monument that he had just been studying in order to make use of the materials. At the time, the conservation of ancient remains was guided more by notions of artistic value than historical interest, and efforts were concentrated on saving the most beautiful architectural items, such as colonnades, large ornamental bosses or coffered domes, and sculptures in particular; the latter were put on display in palaces and residences. Shortly after his installation in Rome in 1552, Cardinal du Bellay had gardens laid out in the western section of the Baths of Diocletian next to his palace, in order to display the large number of sculptures in his collection to maximum effect.

The site then comprised two large rotundas, linked by a hemicycle with steps and, in the wall surmounting it, a large number of niches designed to accommodate the most valuable of his sculptures. This Renaissance transformation of an ancient building is proof of the importance the Humanists ascribed to Roman sculpture, for which they attempted to reconstruct a picturesque, mannerist setting. Enthusiasm for Roman Antiquity continued throughout the seventeenth century, with studies and compendiums like those made by Bosio or Ciampini. Scholarship, travel and the development of archaeology eventually combined in the eighteenth century to supply a scientific definition of the art of Antiquity. J.J. Winckelmann broke with baroque thinking to defend the ancient heritage, which he saw as essentially Greek. He travelled, studied extant works of art at first hand and compiled catalogues. His Unpublished Monuments of Antiquity, exploined ond illustroted

(1767), or his History of Ancient Art (1764), were instrumental in forming eighteenth-century European taste. For the first time, more attention was paid to sculpture than to painting. Winckelmann’s ideas held sway throughout the nineteenth century and are still influential in the twentieth. They have not, however, been helpful for the study of Roman art, because he attempted to identify a specific period of Greek art with “Art” as such, thereby giving Greek art a position of pre-eminence over Roman.

In the nineteenth century, Jakob Burckhardt (1818—1897) in defining cultural history drew a parallel between political history and the history of art. He applied his method to the Italian Renaissance, to Greek sculpture and to Late Antiquity, explaining the transition from paganism to Christianity in his work on Constantine the Great (1853). But it was left to two Viennese historians of medieval and modern art, Franz Wickhoff (1853—1909) and Alois Riegl (1858—1905), to recognize the originality of Roman art. As they saw it, three elements defined the artistic language unique to the Roman world: the portrait, the continuous narrative relief, and the introduction of perspective and landscape elements into painting and relief sculpture.

Another aspect of the discovery of Roman sculpture, as with Greek sculpture, was the growing importance of archaeological discoveries and explorations during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Gradually, as major excavations got under way, people began to take an interest in Roman sculpture for its own sake, rather than as a means of tracing Greek originals. The first excavations at Herculaneum were undertaken in I7tt, and between 1738 and 1766 the whole site was systematically explored. In 1748, work began on Pompeii, where less effort was required because the layer of lava covering the remains was thinner and there was a greater admixture of ash. As archaeological methods progressed, different aspects of daily life in a Roman town began to emerge. Finally, in 1809, work was started on the Roman Forum.

Piecing together the development of Etruscan art in the first three-quarters of the fourth century BC is a real challenge for modern critics, even more difficult than that posed by the last three-quarters of the previous century. From the end of the fifth century and throughout the fourth century, the revival of the art and craft tradition (initially more quantitative than qualitative) took place against the background of an Etruria already shorn of extensive territories in Campania and soon to lose those in the Po valley. Thus the path taken by this revival was far from simple or easily discernible.

The political revival on which the new social order and the recovery of the local artisanal tradition depended proved slow; the directions it took were tortuous and remain unclear. In many respects, it was the nobility, in search of self—glorification, that led the recovery in commissions for works of art, either in the private sphere of tombs, which were becoming increasingly complex in style and were sometimes richly decorated with paintings and sculptures, or in the public sphere. After a long period of inactivity that had lasted almost a century, building began again in the cities of southern Etruria, which encouraged the development of terracotta sculpture. The economic recovery of the fourth century helped to restore favourable conditions, not unlike those of the sixth century, and led to the emergence of a stratified society and of a middle class interested in consuming art. The process of revival was thus a complex one that cannot he reduced to a single unified phenomenon.

The city of Volsinii-Orvieto played an important role in this process. It was the site of the Fanum (shrine) of Voltumnae, a deity common to all Etruscans, and of important annual ceremonies that served to legitimate the quasi—political, quasi—religious primacy of one city over the others, and that of the priuceps of that city over those in all Etruria. Volsinii’s position as Etruriar caput — “the moral capital of Etruria” as Livy described it comparable - with that of Olympia or Delphi in the Greek world, led to the development of a great deal of artistic activity around the city, notably the production of sumptuous bronze votive sculptures. According to cine Greek source that tells of the sacking of the city by the Romans in 265 BC, there were more than two thousand such sculptures. It is no accident that the Mars from Todi, which we have already described as a transitional work pointing the way towards the renaissance of the fourth century, has been attributed to the Volsinii workshop. Nor is at a coincidence that the sanctuaries of that city, where the Etruscan aristocracies battled for prestige and dedacated their votive offerings, were repaired, rebuilt and even extended from the end of the fifth century BC onwards.

The art of terracotta sculpture in Volsinii, which produced the splendid architectonic terracottas that adorned at least two temples in the city (Via S. Leonardo and Belvedere) and two extramural ones (Cannicella and Campo della Fiera), clearly reflects the formal and cultural contradictions that characterized the end of the fifth century and the early decades of the fourth century. The oldest and most highly developed of these terracotta sculptures are those from the temple in the Via S. Leonardo, which date from the end of the fifth century. The very beautiful head of Zeus-Tinia, and the equally beautiful one of the female deity that belongs with it, undoubtedly seek to arouse feelings of pietas and reverentia:

they draw upon models from the earliest Classical period, both in the conception of the face, which is very close to the Severe style, and in the stylized, not truly Classical rendering, of the hair and beard. However, the other pieces in the pediment group, such as the torso of a young man wearing a bracelet adorned with bullae, with its extremely delicate modelling, show that the decoration was conceived towards the cud of the fifth century and that the archaisms apparent in the treatment of the figures of the deities were introduced deliberately for subtle ideological ends.

The rear pediment of the Belvedere of Orvieto (late fifth—early fourth century BC), the decorations of which depict a recently identified Homeric theme, was also made up of traditional elements of the Severe style combined with new features characteristic of the late fifth century. The scene is the drawing of lots for the Achaean hero to face Hector, the Trojan champion, and is certainly an allusion to the annual investiture of the Etruscan princeps held at Volsinii. Here, however, the elements of the Severe style are not consciously employed as stylistic devices, but reflect rather the enduring qualities of a living past that shows through the incompletely assimilated Classical form. Although they are squat and some of their gestures are inelegant, the bodies conform to the Classical canon. But the treatment of the hair, draperies and various facial detail, redolent of the Severe style, does not add any particular note of solemnity and is, on the contrary, rather expressionistic. Thus the persistence of the older Severe style influenced two works produced at the same time and in the same place in two entirely different ways and to two entirely different ends.

The abundance of artistic material and evidence means that careful examination of the work produced in Volsinii clearly reveals the path taken by Etruscan figurative culture during this period of renaissance, when the focus of attention was on the acquisition of Classical forms. The Mars from Todi, already mentioned above, exemplifies the deliberate attempts by sculptors at Volsinii to assimilate elements of the Classical style at a relatively early stage. The bronze head from Bolsena, often dated from the first half of the fourth century but belonging in fact to the fifth century BC, demonstrates the profound allegiance of the Etruscan aristocracy to the Severe style, which was left almost untouched by the early incursions of the softer Classical style. Thus the Bolsena head represents the beginning of this slow process of formal change, while the Cagli head, which ‘was undoubtedly produced in a Volsinii workshop and subsequently transferred, like the Mars from Todi, to the adjoining region of Picenum, is an exceptional piece, in which the ascendant Classical forms have been fully assimilated, making it representative of the culmination of this process between the first and second quarters of the fourth century. It is the work produced at Volsinii that most clearly illustrates how Etruscan figurative culture was able to free itself from the Severe style. A substantial number of high-quality items has come down to us, mainly public commissions produced at a time when the city was developing rapidly, or votive offerings, made of metal, from the highest strata of society. In other eases, by contrast, evidence available is only episodic; the works that have survived seem isolated and difficult to place in context. As far as sculpting in bronze is concerned, the extraordinary votive statue of the Chimaera foreshadows, as early as the first decades of the fourth century, the key role in the metalworking industry that the more northerly city of Arezzo was to acquire during the Hellenistic period. The design of the piece is very eclectic, with Severe or even Archaic elements, such as the lion mask, the highly stylized mane and the schematic appearance of the rib cage, combining with purely Classical elements, such as the fluid treatment of the surfaces, which are delicately animated by bulging veins and tightly tensed muscles.

However, the workshops of the Orvieto region were not alone in the difficulties they had experienced at the end of the fifth century BC. Workshops in the cities of southern Etruria were beginning to awaken from the torpor into which the oligarchic austerity of the fifth century had plunged them, and were encountering even greater difficulties than their northern counterparts because of the greater economic and cultural disruptions they had been forced to undergo. While there seemed to be no revival in public commissions in the northern cities, at Tarquinia (the sanctuary of the “Ara della Regina”) and at Cerveteri (sanctuary of Pyrgi), architectonic terracottas of very high quality have been found that date from the middle of the fourth century or shortly afterwards (thus slightly after the flowering of terracotta modelling at Volsinii) and follow the canons of Classical Greek sculpture in its late phase.

In these southern cities, there were not enough private commissions to fill the gap between the end of the fifth and the middle of the fourth centuries BC, and little votive sculpture of high quality was produced during this period. However, as the intermediate social classes gradually reconstituted themselves, an opening developed for medium—sized and large—scale votive sculpture in terracotta (usually produced by moulding) that was to constitute most of what we know about votive sculpture in the following period. Production of funerary sculpture (which had never ceased in the northern city of Chiusi) slowly recommenced, taking as its point of departure the constantly repeated and renewed theme of the figure reclining on the lid of a sarcophagus This typology was possibly inspired by the prestige of the Chiusi aristocracy, and was to enjoy considerable success in the centuries to come. However, the first steps down the road to recovery were hesitant, as is demonstrated, for example, by the flat, poorly delineated figures on the sarcophagus from the “Tomb of the Sarcophagi” at Cerveteri, which dates from the end of the fifth or the beginning of the fourth century. Some twenty years later, however, the two sarcophagi for the “Tomb of the Tetnies” were made at Vulci, probably under the influence of the more active artistic environment in neighbouring Volsinsii. The conjugal couple on each lid, as well as the sculptures on the sarcophagus itself, depicting both mythological and “real- life” scenes, are wholly Classical in the rendering of the anatomy and the drape of the garments, although here and there, in the faces of the deceased and the draperies, there are glimpses of the style of the previous century. The sarcophagus at Tarquinia known as the “Tomb of the Magnate”, which dates from the third quarter of the fourth century, represents the culmination of the process. Here, the earlier tradition is no longer represented by deliberate repetitions of significant details but rather by conventional borrowings of marginal elements, such as the sphinx and lion cubs placed as akroteria at the ends of the sarcophagus. Henceforth, on the eve of the great Hellenistic transformation, the Classical style became a common heritage for all Etruria.